Liam Brady - Irish Football
Great

Liam Brady Shooting for Goal

Liam Brady - Introduction

Liam Brady is a true Irish
soccer great. It is a major regret for many Republic of Ireland fans that
this wonderful soccer talent was never displayed in a major international
championship finals. Injury, bad luck and his inability to adapt fully
to the Jack
Charlton football philosophy all conspired to prevent him from appearing
in the finals of either the Euro Championship or World Cup. Undoubtedly
Liam Brady was the most Irish talented footballer of his generation and
he went on to play for top soccer clubs in England and Italy.

Liam Brady - the Early Years

Brady was born, and raised
in the 1960's, in Dublin. As a schoolboy he played for the northside Dublin
football club St
Kevin's Boys and very quickly came to the attention of the Irish based
scouts for English top flight clubs.

While Brady was playing
his schoolboy soccer in Ireland the English First Division (the fore runner
of the Premier League) was being dominated by football clubs from the
North of England. Clubs from London were struggling to make the big breakthrough.
Nevertheless it was London club Arsenal that attracted a 13 year old Liam
Brady over for soccer trials.

With hindsight it seems
obvious that the young Brady would impress the Arsenal staff with his
footballing gifts in general and his sublime left foot. Equally the professionalism
in approach and the high quality set up at

Highbury impressed Brady. In 1971, at the
age of 15, Brady moved across to Arsenal on a full-time basis.

Liam Brady - the Arsenal Years

Arsenal had just completed
the League and FA Cup double. This was only the second time that this
remarkable feat had been achieved. The Arsenal team at the time included
such soccer luminaries as Charlie George, Ray Kennedy, George Graham and,
subsequent TV football pundit,
Bob Wilson. The young Liam Brady couldn't have arrived at the club at
a better time as everyone was buoyed by the recent success and the mood
at the club was very positive.

Unlike other young Irish
football greats such as George Best and
Damien Duff, Liam Brady does not seem to
have suffered from homesickness. The player himself puts this down to
the fact that two of his brothers were already playing professional football
in London. Ray Brady was playing for Millwall and Pat Brady played for
QPR. He always had family support at hand whenever needed.

At the time Arsenal were
committed to a strong youth policy and in fact half of the double winning
squad were homegrown. Of the group of young players that the teenager
Liam Brady rubbed shoulders with, David O'Leary, Frank
Stapleton, Graham Rix, John Matthews, and Richie Powling all went
on to play for the Arsenal senior team. The club obviously believed that
Ireland was a good source of fodder for it's youth policy as not only
did the club recruit Brady, Stapleton, and O'Leary it also recruited Niall
Quinn, John Devine who both went on to also play for the senior team
and Johnny Murphy who ultimately returned to Ireland to play top flight
rugby.

Arsenal Debut

Liam Brady played his first
senior competitive league match for Arsenal in October 1973. The opposition
was provided by Birmingham City. With his exquisite left foot and stunning
array of passing Brady was an instant hit with the fans. These skills
that were obvious from the off were to go on to keep the Arsenal fans,
and others, captivated for the remainder of the decade. Brady developed
legendary status with the club.

Four Cup Finals but no League Title

Following the heroics of
the 1971 double winning team was always going to be very difficult. During
the Brady years the First Division title eluded Arsenal but in 1978, 79
& 80 the team reached three FA Cup Finals. In those days winning the
FA Cup was a big deal and was a very close second to the league title.
Reaching three consecutive Cup finals was a significant achievement in
English soccer.

Unfortunately for Arsenal
and their fans they only won one of them. Significantly the lost the two
they were expected to win, against Ipswitch Town in '78 and versus West
Ham United in '80. Ironically they were given little chance against Manchester
United in '79 yet Arsenal won 3-2. It is sometimes referred to as
the Liam Brady Final because Brady had a significant role in all
three of the Arsenal goals. Arsenal had been leading 2-0 with less than
10 minutes remaining.

Amazingly United scored
two late goals and extra time was looming. With about one minute of normal
time left, and from the kickoff after the second United goal, Liam Brady
burst forward laying off a beautifully weighted pass to Graham Rix on
the left wing. Rix crossed the ball to the back post of the United goal
to be met by a lunging Alan Sunderland. 3-2 to Arsenal with no time for
a reply from Manchester United. Utter despair followed by complete soccer
ecstasy for the Arsenal players and the fans. Perhaps this was the defining
performance by Liam Brady for Arsenal.

Winning the FA Cup in 1979
meant that Arsenal qualified for the European Cup Winners Cup in 1980.
The Londoners reached the final against Spanish football club Valencia.
Honours were shared after normal and extra time so a penalty shoot-out
was required to separate the teams. Unfortunately Liam Brady missed his
penalty and Valencia captured the trophy.

Liam Brady - The Italy Years

The match against Valencia
turned out to be one of Liam Brady's last football matches for Arsenal.
As he admits himself, Brady had decided that he wanted to test himself
at a higher level. Previously Kevin Keegan of Liverpool
FC had successfully moved to Hamburg in the the Bundesliga. The German
soccer giants Bayern Munich had shown some interest in Brady but the move
never materialised. Arsenal had defeated Juventus in the Cup Winners Cup
semi-final earlier in 1980. Obviously Brady had impressed Giovanni
Trapattoni (who would in future years become Republic
of Ireland manager) the then manager of the World renowned Italian
club. When Juventus made an official bid for Brady the player jumped at
the chance of playing football in the most competitive soccer league in
the World at the time.

Juventus hadn't won Serie
A for a few years but the team included some truly outstanding players
including Bettega, goalkeeping legend Dino Zoff, Gentile, Tardelli, Scirea
and others. A half dozen of the Italian football team that won the World
Cup in 1982 came from Juventus. After a somewhat tentative start with
the club things took a turn for the better when Brady made one goal and
scored another in a match against Inter Milan. Juventus went on to end
their barren spell when the club won the league in Brady's first season
in Italy. In the process he scored eight goals which was a very impressive
return from a midfielder in the notoriously parsimonious Italian league.
A second consecutive scuddeta was delivered the following year. After
all the years of effort to win an English league title with Arsenal, Brady
won two Italian titles in two years with Juventus.

Brady went on to play for
three other Italian clubs during his stint in Serie A, Sampdoria, Inter
Milan and finally Ascoli. He didn't manage to scale the kind of heights,
achieved with Juve, with these clubs but he graced football pitches across
Italy with his sumptuous talent for a total of six years. After that Brady
returned to England to finish his career playing for West Ham United.

Liam Brady - Irish International Footballer

From a very early age it
was obvious that Liam Brady would be a star player and not just in soccer.
He was an accomplished GAA player however his decision to captain the
Ireland under-15s in a match saw him expelled from his secondary school,
St Aidan's, run by the Christian Brothers. The young Brady was a victim
of GAA rule 27 that banned peolple from playing 'foreign sports' such
as soccer and rugby.

In October 1974 Liam Brady
made his International football career debut against the Soviet Union
at Dalymount Park.
This is one of the most famous matches in Irish soccer history. Not only
did it see the launch of an international career of a great Irish footballer
it was also a famous thrashing of a true soccer power at the time. The
main headlines were about the fact that Don
Givens scored a great hat trick but the significant subtext was the
introduction of a young gifted footballer with a maturity beyond his years.

Johnny
Giles, another great Irish soccer player, had recently taken charge
of the national team as player / manager. Under his management the Irish
soccer team showed significant improvement in performances and results.
This was due to a combination of John
Giles' ability as a manager and the available crop players at the
time. Not only had Brady arrived on the scene Giles could also select
players of the quality of Frank
Stapleton, David O'Leary, Gerry
Daly, Steve Heighway, Mark Lawrenson, Don
Givens and himself. With the exception of the Jack Charlton era it
is difficult to imagine that Ireland ever had such and array of talent
available at the same time. Despite a number of close calls the Republic
failed to qualify for a major soccer championship finals tournament under
Giles and his under his successor Eoin
Hand.

In 1986 Jack
Charlton was appointed manager of the Irish senior team. Charlton
introduced a new direct style and also encouraged a number of UK-born
players to declare for the Republic under the so-called Granny
rule. Players such as John Aldridge, Ray Houghton and Andy Townsend
were now pushing for places in the Irish team. Despite the popular view,
Liam Brady was a regular in Charlton's earlier teams and he played in
every match during the successful 1988
Euro qualifying campaign. It is true that the Charlton game plan did
not particularly suit very creative players like Brady but he almost certainly
would have been in the squad that went to Germany for the finals if injury
hadn't intervened. A cruciate ligament injury sustained while playing
for West Ham ended Brady's his hopes of going to Germany.

Bradys' Bunched

Any chance of a swan song
appearance in the Word Cup Finals in 1990 evaporated when Charlton substituted
Brady in the first half of a pre-tournament friendly against West Germany
at Lansdowne Road
(now Aviva Stadium).
Later Charlton admitted he only started Brady in the match to prove to
the Irish fans that the great player was past his best and that Andy Townsend
was better suited to the team's style.

It was an ignominious end
for one of the few truly world class footballers that Ireland has ever
produced. At the age of 34 and with 72 caps Liam Brady retired from international
soccer. Following brief unsuccessful stints at club management with Celtic
and Brighton & Hove Albion Brady took up a backroom role with Arsenal
where he is still revered as the great Irish footballer that graced Highbury
during the 1970's.